Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is promising legislation this year to ensure tech giants like Google and Facebook pay for the news content they disseminate on their platforms.
The promise comes as newspapers across the country are displaying blank front pages in a bid to highlight the “urgent” need for news media companies to be paid for their work.
News Media Canada, which represents newspaper publishers, organized the campaign; it saw some 105 daily and community newspapers across the country displaying blank front pages Thursday, with more to follow Friday.
The organization argues that Canadian news media companies are going under and journalism jobs are disappearing because their content is being used for free by Google and Facebook, which are simultaneously hoovering up 80 per cent of all digital advertising revenue.
It warns that as the producers of real news disappear, “hate and fake news” will be all that’s left.
In a statement, Guilbeault says his department is studying options for a made-in-Canada formula for ensuring publishers are fairly compensated for the news they produce; his goal is to introduce legislation on the matter this year.
“News is not free and has never been,” he said in the statement Thursday.
“Our position is clear: publishers must be adequately compensated for their work and we will support them as they deliver essential information for the benefit of our democracy and the health and well-being of our communities.”
While the tech giants have played a positive role in making news accessible, Guilbeault said, “we must address the market imbalance between news media organizations and those who benefit from their work.”
He added that the government is looking closely at how other countries are handling the issue, specifically France and Australia.
As far as News Media Canada is concerned, Australia has found the right solution: mandatory arbitration if digital companies fail to reach an agreement with news publishers on how much they should be paid.
“These massive American companies get virtually all of the revenue and don’t pay for content,” says the organization’s president, John Hinds, in an open letter to members of Parliament.
“Movie content doesn’t work that way in Canada. Music content doesn’t work that way. TV show content doesn’t work that way. So why is news content treated differently?”
Google and Facebook have threatened to shut down their services in Australia if the mandatory arbitration policy is implemented. However, Guilbeault has suggested such boycotts will become untenable as more countries follow Australia’s lead.
The minister is expected sometime this winter to introduce legislation to regulate the dissemination of hate speech, child pornography, non-consensual sexual images, terrorism and incitements to violence on social media.
His office says legislation dealing with fair compensation for news content will be introduced separately.
A snapshot of COVID-19 variants on a single day in January suggests levels of the more contagious strains in Ontario are low but that’s expected to change quickly, public health officials said Thursday.
A Public Health Ontario study of COVID-19 cases on a single day in January found variants in 5.5 per cent of cases screened, with the majority linked to a long-term care home outbreak.
Dr. Vanessa Allen, the agency’s top microbiologist, said the results highlight how quickly variants of COVID-19 can spread in an outbreak.
While the data suggests low prevalence, variants are expected to spread rapidly, she said.
“Essentially, doubling is expected approximately every one to two weeks,” Allen said.
Public Health Ontario started screening all positive COVID-19 samples for variants on Wednesday, Allen said.
“Data in the coming days will be helpful to understand how this is evolving in the Ontario context,” she said.
So far, Ontario has recorded 152 cases of the variant that first emerged in the U.K. and one case of another that first emerged in South Africa.
A third variant that first emerged in Brazil has not yet been detected in Ontario.
The variants are believed to be more infectious and health officials have said they might also cause more severe illness.
The province’s medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, said residents must continue following public health practices like masking and physical distancing to guard against further spread of variants.
“What we said before was important for COVID-19 writ large, now for the variant is even more important – to be vigilant in what you’re doing, be careful and cautious,” Williams said.
In its study, Public Health Ontario screened 1,880 positive COVID-19 samples from Jan. 20 and found variants in 103 cases.
The agency said 89 of those cases were in the Simcoe-Muskoka health unit, where a deadly outbreak at the Roberta Place nursing home in Barrie, Ont., was linked to the variant.
Sixty-six residents at Roberta Place had died from the virus as of Thursday. The outbreak has infected more than 200 people, including staff and close contacts.
Outside of outbreaks, the Public Health Ontario study found 1.2 per cent of the total samples were variant cases.
More results from the study are expected in the coming days, the agency said.
The variant that emerged in the U.K. was first detected in Ontario in December and has since been found in 11 public health units.
In Simcoe-Muskoka, the local health unit reported that 91 cases of the U.K. variant had been confirmed in the region as of Thursday, with 60 other likely cases that were awaiting test results.
The unit also reported 85 deaths from COVID-19 in the month of January, “over four times higher” than deaths reported in December 2020.
Ontario reported 1,563 new cases of COVID-19 and 88 more deaths linked to the virus on Thursday.
Public health officials have noted, however, that updates to a provincial database are causing data fluctuations in this week’s case counts.
The National Women’s Hockey League called off the remainder of its season Wednesday on the eve of the playoffs because of additional positive test results for COVID-19.
The NWHL cited safety concerns for what it called the suspension of play inside a quarantined bubble in Lake Placid, New York. COVID-19 instead wreaked havoc on the two-week event.
Two of the league’s six teams had already withdrawn from the tournament, with the Metropolitan Riveters citing “several” virus cases. The league did not confirm the Connecticut Whale’s departure was illness-related and said only it accepted their decision to forfeit a game and withdraw.
The Riveters’ departure last Thursday led the NWHL to postpone all games that day with play resuming Saturday. Coach Ivo Mocek said at the time: “Our team is heartbroken to not have the chance to compete for the Isobel Cup, but we are aligned with the league in prioritizing the well-being of all of the players and staff.”
The NWHL had an agreement with Yale University to provide saliva-based COVID-19 testing for players and staff, similar to what the NBA used for its Disney World bubble last year. Even that testing couldn’t keep the virus out.
The expansion Toronto Six finished with the league’s best record at 4-1-1.
“We don’t have many words right now but what we do know is that we couldn’t be more thankful for all of the support we’ve received over the last 10 months,” the Six tweeted. “From launch on April 22nd to our first ever puck drop. We can’t thank you all enough.
“We will be back.”
Two semifinal games Thursday and and the final Friday were set to be televised nationally in the U.S. on NBC Sports Network, putting women’s hockey in a prominent spotlight a year away from the Beijing Olympics.
The end of the NWHL bubble experiment came on the same day the rival Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association announced it will play a game at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Feb. 28. The PWHPA is made up of 125 of the sport’s biggest stars, including those on the U.S. and Canadian national teams, who banded together in the hopes of forcing the creation of a new pro league.
The game at MSG comes 13 months after PWHPA players took part in NHL All-Star Weekend. It will be the first professional women’s hockey game at the storied arena.
“This is a major milestone for women’s hockey and young girls who aspire to play professional hockey but don’t have the option to make it a career today,” said Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford, an operations consultant for the PWHPA.
The NHL’s New York Rangers are hosting the women’s game with the team playing at Buffalo that day. Rangers president John Davidson said the team is “excited to play even a small role in helping elevate visibility for the women’s game.”
“The talent level of women’s hockey is simply incredible,” Davidson said. “We all love this sport so much and any opportunity the Rangers have to participate in its advancement is something we want to be a part of. It’s a win for everyone involved.”
The game in New York is set to be the first stop on the second “Dream Gap Tour,” with others around the U.S. and Canada to be determined. The announcement was made on National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
“Investing in and advancing women’s hockey strengthens the game overall and creates a range of professional opportunities for women as coaches, front office executives and athletes,” said Mary-Kay Messier, Bauer Hockey vice-president of global marketing and an adviser to the PHWPA.
A bill to expand access to medical assistance in dying has emerged intact from a Senate committee but it’s not likely to remain unscathed for long.
The Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee accepted the bill Wednesday in a matter of minutes, without amendment.
But it did so only because members agreed in advance to hold off proposing amendments until the legislation returns next week to the Senate for final debate.
And several senators made it clear they fully intend to propose amendments when the time comes.
“We can debate this at length at third reading, we can do amendments at third reading,” said Sen. Don Plett, leader of the Conservative Senate caucus.
“As I don’t think it is any secret, I am inherently opposed to the entire piece of legislation … There are a few of us. I’m not alone.”
Indeed, it has become clear during the committee’s extensive hearings on the bill that many senators have profound objections – some, like Plett, because they think it goes too far and others because they think it doesn’t go far enough.
Committee members essentially agreed to shelve their concerns for now, in the interests of getting the bill back to the Senate as a whole quickly.
The government wants the legislation passed by Feb. 26 – the thrice-extended, court-imposed deadline for complying with a 2019 Quebec Superior Court ruling which struck down a provision that allows assisted dying only for those who are nearing the natural end of their lives.
That deadline could still be in jeopardy if, as seems likely, the Senate makes substantial amendments to the bill. The amended version would have to go back to the House of Commons to decide whether to accept or reject the amendments before shipping it back to the Senate, where senators would have to decide whether to approve the bill even if some or all of their amendments were rejected.
In theory, the bill could bounce repeatedly back and forth between chambers.
The bill would scrap the near-death proviso but retain the concept to create two eligibility tracks for an assisted death: a relaxed set of rules for people who are at the end of life and more stringent rules for those who are not.
It would also explicitly prohibit the procedure for people suffering solely from mental illnesses.
Some senators and constitutional experts believe that exclusion contravenes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equal treatment under the law, regardless of physical or mental disability.
Other senators and disability rights advocates argue the bill is unconstitutional because it sends the message that the lives of people with disabilities are not of equal value.
One amendment that will almost certainly be proposed would call on the government to refer the bill to the Supreme Court of Canada for authoritative advice on its constitutionality.
Among other likely amendments:
– A sunset clause on the mental illness exclusion, giving the government a year to come up with guidelines for allowing assisted dying for people suffering solely from mental disorders.
– A clause specifying that discussion of medical assistance in dying must be triggered by the patient, not by medical practitioners.
– A clause to strengthen the conscience rights of medical practitioners, likely specifying that those who have moral or religious objections to assisted dying do not have to refer a patient to someone who will provide the procedure.
– Various amendments to restore some of the eligibility criteria relaxed in Bill C-7 for people who are near death.
– Various amendments to remove some of the more stringent eligibility conditions imposed on people who are not near death.
All Air Canada Rouge flights will be paused beginning Monday.
The airline is citing new restrictions brought in by the Canadian government that effectively ban flights to sunny destinations like the Caribbean and Mexico in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roughly 80 employees have been handed temporary layoffs.
This isn’t the first interruption for Rouge service. Flights were suspended for most of last year but restarted in November ahead of the winter travel season.
Air Canada says Rouge remains a part of its long-term business plan.
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, and Air Transat would suspend service to Caribbean destinations and Mexico between January 31, and April 30.
“With the challenges we currently face with COVID-19, both here at home and abroad, we all agree that now is just not the time to be flying,” Trudeau said last Friday.
“By putting in place these tough measures now, we can look forward to a better time when we can all plan those vacations.”
With files from the Canadian Press
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/02/03/ontario-schools-reopening-plan-covid19/
Students in COVID-19 hotspots – Toronto, Peel and York regions – will return to in-class learning on Tuesday, February 16, Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced on Wednesday.
The following public health units outside of the Greater Toronto Area will head back to class on February 8:
- Brant County Health Unit
- Chatham-Kent Public Health
- Durham Region Health Department
- Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit
- Halton Region Public Health
- City of Hamilton Public Health Services
- Huron Perth Public Health
- Lambton Public Health
- Niagara Region Public Health
- Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit
- Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services
- Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health
- Windsor-Essex County Health Unit
“Following the best medical advice, with the clear support of both Ontario’s and the local Medical Officers of Health, we are reopening schools across the province knowing that we have taken additional steps and made additional investments to better protect our students and staff,” said Lecce.
“Nothing is more important than returning kids to school safely because it is crucial for their development, mental health, and future success.”
http://https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1715060242006682
Lecce said the government wouldn’t hesitate to alter plans if COVID-19 cases begin surging again, adding individual public health units also have the authority to close schools based on local circumstances.
“I want to be clear, if things change … we will not hesitate to act … that’s why we’re gong to monitor the trends to ensure we deliver on our number one priority for our government – keeping schools safe.”
“As kids return to schools, schools will be even safer,” Lecce added, noting the implementation of enhanced screening and testing, as well as mandatory masks for student in Grade One and up.
All students in Ontario began January with online learning as part of a provincial lockdown.
Toronto’s mayor and its officials say they fully support the Ford government’s careful review and subsequent decision to allow kids back for in-person learning.
John Tory and Toronto’s top doctor, Dr. Eileen de Villa, both acknowledged that while any decision made will come with both positive and negative reaction, they say students are better suited inside classrooms.
“I am in full support of the approach taken by premier [Doug] Ford and minister [Stephen] Lecce, including the approach taken with respect to City of Toronto schools, in particular. In-class learning is very important. Kids need the social development they get from going to school while being surrounded by teachers and their peers. We all agree as well that this reopening of schools must happen safely.”
Dr. de Villa, meanwhile, says that on the subject of reopening these schools, she is “of the belief, there is no perfect answer or solution during a pandemic.”
“When schools were closed for months in the first part of the pandemic, it was in large part for the same reason almost everything else was closed, too. We knew very little about COVID-19 – how it is spread, who is vulnerable to it, how it could be treated, and even if vaccines were possible. Over the past year, the body of knowledge has expanded.”
Ontario’s largest teachers’ union said Wednesday that adequate safety measures must be in place to prevent future school closures.
The president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario said the government must take “urgent action” to fund additional measures and provide time for school boards to implement them.
“The Ford government has not invested any new provincial money since August,” Sam Hammond said. “They must stop taking credit for federal funding and invest now to avoid contributing to a third wave.”
NDP education critic Marit Stiles said while the Opposition want to sees schools reopen, the government has not demonstrated how it will make them safe.
The province needs to cap class sizes at 15 students, create a comprehensive in-school testing regime, and improve ventilation, she said.
“Don’t just open schools – make them safe to open,” Stiles said.
Romana Siddiqui, a mother of three living in Mississauga, Ont., said it’s some comfort for her that Peel Region is resuming classes a week later than others, allowing more time for cases to decline further.
She said, however, that she’d still like to see more safety measures, such as smaller class sizes.
“We know for our kids, being in a brick-and-mortar school in person, that’s the best in terms of the quality of their education,” Siddiqui said, adding that it’s a difficult call to weigh the benefits of in-person learning with the risks of virus transmission in schools.
“There’s always a push-and-pull. There’s no easy answers.”
Shameela Shakeel, who has three school-aged children, said she wants assurance that the government’s “enhanced safety measures” will be in place by the time classes resume in York Region in two weeks.
“They have to really start to seriously mean it when they say that safety comes first for our kids and educators,” the Newmarket, Ont., parent said.
The decision on schools came as Ontario reported 1,172 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, although officials noted that updates to the provincial case-management system were causing data fluctuations.
Ontario will announce Wednesday whether schools in regions hardest hit by COVID-19 can reopen next week for in-person learning.
The decision will follow a recommendation from the province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce says parents need to know if schools will reopen for in-person learning so they have time to prepare.
The province has previously said that schools in five COVID-19 hot spots as well as several other regions would reopen for in-person learning by Feb. 10.
All students in Ontario began January with online learning as part of a provincial lockdown.
The province has since taken a staggered approach to reopening physical classrooms, starting first with Northern Ontario and rural schools where case rates are lower.
Donald Trump endangered the lives of all members of Congress when he aimed a mob of supporters “like a loaded cannon” at the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats said Tuesday in making their most detailed case yet for why the former president should be convicted and permanently barred from office. Trump denied the allegations through his lawyers and called the trial unconstitutional.
The dueling filings offer the first public glimpse of the arguments that will be presented to the Senate beginning next week. The impeachment trial represents a remarkable reckoning with the violence in the Capitol last month, which the senators witnessed firsthand, and with Trump’s presidency overall. Held in the very chamber where the insurrectionists stood on Jan. 6, it will pit Democratic demands for a final measure of accountability against the desire of many Republicans to turn the page and move on.
The impeachment trial, Trump’s second, begins in earnest on Feb. 9.
The Democratic legal brief forcefully linked Trump’s baseless efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election to the deadly riot at the Capitol, saying he bears “unmistakable” blame for actions that threatened the underpinnings of American democracy. It argued that he must be found guilty on a charge of inciting the siege. And it used evocative language to conjure the day’s chaos, when “terrified members were trapped in the chamber” and called loved ones “for fear they would not survive.”
“His conduct endangered the life of every single member of Congress, jeopardized the peaceful transition of power and line of succession, and compromised our national security,” the Democratic managers of the impeachment case wrote. “This is precisely the sort of constitutionaloffence that warrants disqualification from federal office.”
The Democrats’ filing made clear their plan to associate Trump’s words with the resulting violence, tracing his efforts to subvert democracy to when he first said last summer that he would not accept the election results and then through the November contest and his many failed attempts to challenge the results in court. When those efforts failed, the Democrats wrote, “he turned to improper and abusive means of staying in power,” specifically by launching a pressure campaign aimed at state election officials, the Justice Department and Congress.
“The only honourable path at that point was for President Trump to accept the results and concede his electoral defeat. Instead, he summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the Democrats wrote in an 80-page document.
The Democrats cited his unsuccessful efforts to sway Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Attorney General William Barr. Trump then became “fixated” on Jan. 6, the managers wrote. They note that many of his supporters, including the Proud Boys _ who Trump told to “stand back and stand by” at a September debate _ were already primed for violence.
“Given all that, the crowd which assembled on January 6 unsurprisingly included many who were armed, angry, and dangerous_and poised on a hair trigger for President Trump to confirm that they indeed had to “fight” to save America from an imagined conspiracy,” the Democrats wrote.
The House brief is more than 5 times as long as the 14-page Trump filing and heavy on footnotes and citations, aiming to construct what Democrats hope will be a detailed roadmap for conviction. Trump’s legal team, by contrast, was more sparing in a filing that avoided dwelling on the drama and violence of the day.
Trump’s lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce Castor, denied that he had incited the riot by disputing the election results or by exhorting his followers to “fight like hell.” They said he was permitted by the First Amendment to challenge his loss to Democrat Joe Biden as “suspect” and that, in any event, the trial itself was unconstitutional now that Trump has left the White House.
Trump’s lawyers disputed the Democrats’ characterization of Trump’s remarks and his role in the riot, denying that he had ever endangered national security. When he told his followers to fight like hell, they said, he was talking about “election security in general.”
Trump, they said, was not attempting to interfere with the counting of electoral votes, only encouraging members of Congress to engage in the customary process of challenging vote submissions “under a process written into Congressional rules,” as had been done in years past.
“The actions by the House make clear that in their opinion the 45th President does not enjoy the protections of liberty upon which this great Nation was founded, where free speech, and indeed, free political speech form the backbone of all American liberties,” the defence lawyers wrote.
Trump’s legal team also laid out a challenge to the constitutionality of the trial now that Trump has left office. Though that claim may not be resolved any time soon in the courts, it may nonetheless resonate politically.
Republicans have signalled that acquittal is likely, with many saying they think Congress should move on and questioning the constitutionality of an impeachment trial _ Trump’s second _ now that he has left office. In a test vote in the Senate last week, 45 Republicans, including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, voted in favour of an effort to dismiss the trial over those constitutional concerns.
Still, the Constitution specifies that disqualification from office can be a punishment for an impeachment conviction, and Democrats made clear that they see that as a worthwhile objective in this case.
“This is not a case where elections alone are a sufficient safeguard against future abuse; it is the electoral process itself that President Trump attacked and that must be protected from him and anyone else who would seek to mimic his behaviour,” the Democrats wrote.
Though no president has been tried after departing the White House, Democrats say there is precedent, pointing to an 1876 impeachment of a secretary of war who resigned his office in a last-ditch attempt to avoid an impeachment trial. The Senate held it anyway.
The Democrats wrote that the framers of the Constitution would not have wanted to leave the country defenceless against “a president’s treachery in his final days, allowing him to misuse power, violate his Oath, and incite insurrection against Congress and our electoral institutions” simply because he is leaving office. Setting that precedent now would “horrify the Framers,” the brief said.
“There is no `January Exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the Democrats wrote. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”
Canada’s top defence officials say they are troubled by allegations that former defence chief Jonathan Vance engaged in inappropriate behaviour with female subordinates.
Global News reported on Tuesday that Vance allegedly had an ongoing relationship with a woman he significantly outranked.
Vance is also alleged to have made a sexual comment to a second, much younger soldier in 2012, before he was appointed chief of the defence staff.
Vance could not be reached for comment on Tuesday and the allegations against him could not be independently verified.
In a joint statement, Vance’s successor Admiral Art McDonald and Defence Department deputy minister Jody Thomas say they take all such allegations seriously, without suggesting they had substantiated these.
They say misconduct by anyone at any rank in the Canadian Forces harms the military’s ability to operate and protect the country.
“We will be communicating more in the coming days and have no further comment at this time,” their statement said.
Vance acknowledged having been in a relationship with the first woman nearly 20 years ago, according to Global, but that it had evolved over the years and was not sexual.
The former defence chief also said he had no recollection of making a sexual comment to the other junior member, adding if he did make the comment it would have been intended as a joke and that he was prepared to apologize.
The allegations against Vance come less than a month after he turned over command of the Canadian Armed Forces to McDonald.
Vance took over as defence chief in July 2015, at which point the Canadian Armed Forces was struggling with allegations of having turned a blind eye toward sexual misconduct in the ranks.
Vance’s first order as Canada’s top military commander was to launch an all-out effort against such inappropriate behaviour, which he continued to push during his five-plus years at the helm.
Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and turned into an online shopping behemoth, is stepping down as the company’s CEO, a role he’s had for nearly 30 years.
He’ll be replaced in the fall by Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon’s cloud-computing business. Bezos, 57, will then become the company’s executive chair.
In a blog post to employees, Bezos said he plans to focus on new products and early initiatives being developed at Amazon. And he said he’ll have more time for side projects: his space exploration company Blue Origin; the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post; and his charities.
Launched in 1995, Amazon was a pioneer of fast and free shipping that won over millions of shoppers who used the site to buy diapers, TVs and just about anything. Under Bezos, Amazon also launched the first e-reader that gained mass acceptance, and its Echo listening device made voice assistants a more common sight in many living rooms.
As a child, Bezos was intrigued by computers and interested in building things, such as alarms he rigged in his parents’ home. He got a degree in electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University, and then worked at several Wall Street companies.
He quit his job at D.E. Shaw to start an online retail business _ though at first he wasn’t sure what to sell. Bezos quickly determined that an online bookstore would resonate with consumers. He and his wife, MacKenzie, whom he met at D.E. Shaw and married in 1993, set out on a road trip to Seattle _ a city chosen for its abundance of tech talent and proximity to a large book distributor in Roseburg, Oregon.
While MacKenzie drove, Bezos wrote up the business plan for what would become Amazon.com. Bezos convinced his parents and some friends to invest in the idea, and Amazon began operating out of the Bezos’ Seattle garage on July 16, 1995.
